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Re: "treatment treadmill"

There's a huge difference in treatment free and chemical free. Unless you change gloves from hive to hive and sterilize your gloves between uses, chemicals will be transferred from hive to hive. Good Lord, don't we know what treatment free is? It's simply not using any treatments.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

Originally Posted by Acebird

Yes the formic acid may evaporate but what did it leave behind? Do you have proof that there are no residuals? I realize that formic acid may be a soft chemical by itself and could possible be used with out long lasting effects in the equipment but is there a beekeeper who treats only using formic acid? I doubt it. It is like saying I smoke but but I don't inhale.

What did it leave behind? Most likely nothing.

Do I know a beekeeper who treats only with formic acid? No. But I do know beekeepers who alternate only non residual treatments, and I am one of them.

Do I have proof there are no residuals? No, impossible to prove cos somewhere in the world, there MIGHT be a chemical, that MIGHT end up in a beehive, that MIGHT react with formic acid, and MIGHT be residual in the hive long term, and after all that it MIGHT effect treatment free beekeeping later. Way beyond my scope to attempt to disprove such an assertion.

It's something that happens often on chat sites. Person A makes a wild, unproven claim. Person B questions it. Person A challenges person B to disprove it. As some wild claims are hard to prove either way, person B cannot disprove it, so person A goes "see, I must be right". 99% of the time, they are not right.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

If I made the claim that ALL chemical treatments will matter then I would like to retract that to SOME chemical treatments will matter as in the ones mostly recommended to newbies buying new equipment. Most people don't have the ability to prove one way or another whether the level of a chemical used in the hive stays in the hive so I generalized that once you use chemicals you don't know. That doesn't mean you cannot practice treatment free only that you cannot say your bees are not treated unless you start with new equipment. Hey you can feel and do what ever you like. I am.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

Re: "treatment treadmill"

....the antibiotic resistance study that is being discussed on another thread (our of the Moran lab at Yale) documents measurable heritable effects of the use of antibiotcs that is separate from residues. Not all long term effects of treatments are attributal to the persistence of residues.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

Agreed but not all treatments are antibiotics.

My point was it is too broad to say that once a hive has been treated, with anything, it can never go treatment free.

In addition, even the longer term affects of antibiotic use need not stop a hive going treatment free. The effects of antibiotic use may be long term, but they are not permanent. Balance will eventually be restored, not only to bioflora, but also at the genome level.

There have been a number of threads here where people have purchased hives that have been treated with antibiotics for years. The new owner stops treatment, then looses some hives to AFB. But of the survivors, the owner has been able to maintain a treatment free regime (seemingly) successfully.

There was even a thread where a guy wanted to be treatment free but when he stoppped antibiotic use of his newly purchsed hives, some showed AFB. He then started a thread asking what to do and was advised by some to treat another time or two to get rid of the AFB. He said he would do that, and THEN go treatment free. Never heard the eventual outcome though.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

I bought used equipment from an old man who was forced to quit by infirmity. Thirty splits made on that equipment out of thirty developed AFB. Pretty well shows he has been masking the disease with antibiotics and propagating it. I did not use antibiotics but shook them into new equipment with foundation. Come spring and summer we will see if that worked as well as it appears to have so far. Haven't seen a suspicious cell so far.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

Originally Posted by Oldtimer

There was even a thread where a guy wanted to be treatment free but when he stoppped antibiotic use of his newly purchsed hives, some showed AFB. He then started a thread asking what to do and was advised by some to treat another time or two to get rid of the AFB.

Isn't it a given that if a colony has an outbreak of AFB the options are burning it or treating it endlessly with antibiotics until another outbreak? I am trying to understand the logic of going treatment free after an AFB outbreak unless it is a laboratory attempt to breed AFB resistant bees.

My point was it is too broad to say that once a hive has been treated, with anything, it can never go treatment free.

Where is that grey line? How do you instruct a newbie what to look for or how to tell when that grey line is over the edge. I know if a newbie already spent good money on new equipment he has the greatest chance of success going treatment free because he didn't start with a problem. Maybe you Oldtimer, Roland, Michael B and Michael P, Mark and host of others can judge what is safe and what is not but a newbie cannot.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

Vance, One serious question I woudl have. since you evidently moved and handled all 30 hives. do you think maybe you carried the Foul Brood to all 30? Just asking. You could have had only one infected hive and then been the carrier to every other hive. You did say they developed it. Not that they already had it and that is what stood out to me.

I don't tend to hold another beekeeper responsible for what hives develop under the care of another beekeeper. Not that it couldn't be so. But the first place to look for me is the current beekeeper. That is the first and most obvious answer.

You also said the beekeeper sold out due to not being able to continue. I am sure he did not just wake up one day realizing he didn't have what it took. It is reasonable to assume that his bees have been in a state of decline as to the quality of their care for some time. I expect that if the bees came with a pre existing condition it might be due to lack of care rather than care masking symptoms. The timing of it appearing may have been coincidental. But I suspect it a result of lack of care far more than I believe it is a masking due to care. The odds are simply in favor of it given the other factors.

What you do relate is in fact. The bees where doing fine under his care including any treatments he applied. they did not do well under yours at first. you then treated in your preferred manner and hopefully they will continue to do well. Both remedies are effective. you simply did not keep up any remedy at first. Evidently they where well enough when you chose to take them to pass your evaluation.

Treated bees are well, untreated bees did not do well. bees again treated but with different method doing well again. Seems to me treatment is necessary and their is a range of choices.

Re: "treatment treadmill"

Antibiotic use suppresses the clinical symptoms of AFB...what Vance reported is a common story...note, he did not get bees, but equipment.

AFB spores can live for 40+ years...it's common to find old equipment that was abandoned when the bees died for some unknown (or unremembered) reason....oftentimes this was AFB. Used equipment is no bargain (unless you have access to irradiation).

Re: "treatment treadmill"

Originally Posted by deknow

Antibiotic use suppresses the clinical symptoms of AFB...what Vance reported is a common story...note, he did not get bees, but equipment.

AFB spores can live for 40+ years...it's common to find old equipment that was abandoned when the bees died for some unknown (or unremembered) reason....oftentimes this was AFB. Used equipment is no bargain (unless you have access to irradiation).

deknow

+1

journaling the growth of a treatment free apiary started in 2010. 20+/- hives